But even as he spoke the red won, and the Frenchman with a boyish gurgle of pleasure raked in his winnings with his two hands, and then turned with a happy, triumphant laugh to his wife. It is not easy to convince a man that he is making a fool of himself when he is winning some hundred francs every two minutes. His silent arguments to the contrary are difficult to answer. But the Plunger did not regard this in the least.
“Do you hear me?” he said in the same stubborn tone and with much the same manner with which he would have spoken to a groom. “Come away.”
Again the Frenchman tossed off his hand, this time with an execration, and again he placed the rolls of gold coin on the red; and again the red won.
“My God!” cried the girl, running her fingers over the rolls on the table, “he has won half of the 20,000 francs. Oh, sir, stop him, stop him!” she cried. “Take him away.”
“Do you hear me!” cried the Plunger, excited to a degree of utter self-forgetfulness, and carried beyond himself; “you've got to come with me.”
“Take away your hand,” whispered the young Frenchman, fiercely. “See, I shall win it all; in one grand coup I shall win it all. I shall win five years' pay in one moment.”
He swept all of the money forward on the red and threw himself over the table to see the wheel.
“Wait, confound you!” whispered the Plunger, excitedly. “If you will risk it, risk it with some reason. You can't play all that money; they won't take it. Six thousand francs is the limit, unless,” he ran on quickly, “you divide the 12,000 francs among the three of us. You understand, 6,000 francs is all that any one person can play; but if you give 4,000 to me, and 4,000 to your wife, and keep 4,000 yourself, we can each chance it. You can back the red if you like, your wife shall put her money on the numbers coming up below eighteen, and I will back the odd. In that way you stand to win 24,000 francs if our combination wins, and you lose less than if you simply back the color. Do you understand?”
“No!” cried the Frenchman, reaching for the piles of money which the Plunger had divided rapidly into three parts, “on the red; all on the red!”
“Good heavens, man!” cried the Plunger, bitterly. “I may not know much, but you should allow me to understand this dirty business.” He caught the Frenchman by the wrists, and the young man, more impressed with the strange look in the boy's face than by his physical force, stood still, while the ball rolled and rolled, and clicked merrily, and stopped, and balanced, and then settled into the “seven.”